When we first bought the house, five years ago, the large lot was a blank slate. High dessert with your exact same problem. I haven't tried this out yet, so it may or may not work. For those rock areas not near any edges of my landscaping, it is not efficient to keep trying to blow the same dirt over a long distance to get it off the yard, so I built a 4' x 8' plywood platform that I can blow the dirt on and then shovel it into a wheelbarrow. It is tricky, because if the rocks get under the plastic, it creates gaps along the concrete curbing edging where small weed seeds will start to germinate. Near the edges of the rock areas, I am careful not to blow with too much velocity, because I don't want to either blow the rocks out of the landscaped area or blow the rocks under the edge of the plastic liner. If I had smaller rocks, this blowing technique would not work because it would just blow smaller rocks away with the dirt. There is a plastic liner under the rocks, and the rocks are heavy enough that they don't move too much. I just start on one part of the rock area and work my way in the direction of the wind toward the nearest edge of the rock landscaping. On a real windy day, a lot of the dirt blows up and away, so I pick a day when the wind is blowing in the right direction to get the dirt off of the nearest edge of the rocks. I use a high-power blower to blast the dirt out and up into the air. So it is an annual job for me to blow the dirt right back out of the rocks. Although we live in the desert, there is the occasional massive rain storm the washes huge amounts of muddy water across the rocks from the dirt road. When cars drive by, or when the wind blows hard, the dirt blows, and settles in between the 1-2" rocks. I have 90 tons of rock landscaping in my front yard, and it tends to fill up with dirt because we live on a dirt road. If you do take care of these, I think it really is a good option, as it certainly does leave your rocks looking spankin' new. You've also got to be careful that you don't spray on any plants that you do want to keep, as the pressure could blow them to bits. Please take caution: The water pressure is extremely high and could injure humans if directed at them at close range. You will have to undertake some manual labour to get it done. However, do note that there is no easy way out. It'll be easier to refine this advice when I see a pic of the rock garden. Once you get the dirt out of the way, you can get some fine gravel and pour it through the gaps, spreading it with a small stick (poke through the gaps) under the rocks, so that it will help suppress weed growth. You might have to do a little bit of rearranging prior to hosing them (to make the gaps wider) and provide a path for the water+dirt mix to flow out. You can easily get these for rental at your local rental store. One option is to get a powerful jet washer and just blast water through the gaps to loosen the dirt.
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